Customer Reviews

Bitter Night: A Horngate Witches Book

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Review Courtesy of All Things Urban Fantasy

Like my favorite urban fantasy author Patricia Briggs (who just happened to have blurbed for this book), Diana Pharaoh Francis has a background as an established fantasy writer, and that background is certainly evident in Bitter Night.

"Max's phone rang. It was set to a high-pitched tone that most humans couldn't hear. But being human hadn't been Max's problem since 1979." -Bitter Night

First up, the good: Diana's fantasy background was a strength that she fully utilized in created the world of the Horngate Witches. Witches hold amazing power in Bitter Night. Shadowblades and Sunspears are human servants magically enhanced with superhuman abilities and senses. They are not that dissimilar from vampires: they can heal from most wounds, never grow old, and the sun (or moon depending on whether they are Sunspears or Shadowblades) is deadly to them. They even struggle with enlarged appetites (try 40 Big Macs at once).

Max (she adopted the name from the Mel Gibson character in The Road Warrior movies, though I think she is much more like Riggs from Lethal Weapon) is the Prime Shadowblade for the witch Giselle. Enslaved by the witch that made her, compelled to lay down her very life if necessary in order to keep Giselle safe, Max is not the grateful servant she's expected to be. Rather she is consumed with one thought: Revenge. It is the one hope that keeps her from walking out in to the sunlight that would kill her. When forces greater than even the witches threaten everything that Max has come to care about, she must learn to ally with her enemy and accept the role she must play as savior.

The cover art is what first attracted me to this book. And I love that Max is actually described like the cover depicts her. She even wears the cover outfit during a pivotal scene in the book. In that scene Max is forced into a test of endurance against another witch's Prime Shadowblade, Alexander (who I think deserved a spot on the cover as a significant number of chapters are written from his point of view).

The not-so good: Diana's fantasy background is both her strength and her weakness. The fantasy Horngate world is well realized with its own unique mythology (especially her take on Angels), the urban elements, however, are less so. There is very little interaction with the modern (outside) world, and while the characters all have cell phones and drive cars etc., apart from those details, this story could easily have been set a millennium ago with minor changes. I'm not sure if those small additions will be enough for hardcore urban fantasy lovers.

I'll also admit that it took me until about the midpoint to really get into this book. Max is a hard character and the circumstances of her life have made her very bitter (hence the title). At first, I struggled to see past that aspect of her. I understood her to a degree, I just didn't especially like her. That changed when she risked her life for Alexander not knowing if he would turn around and kill her later. Her loyalty to the Shadowblades in her command was also a contributing factor. She consistently put their welfare over her own need for revenge. It's hard not to admire that kind of selflessness.

I never really did warm up to Alexander. He didn't seem strong enough to be a realistic romantic lead for Max (the Angel on the other hand...). Nor did I ever believe the conflicting desire they supposedly felt for each other went beyond plain lust. Overall, I found his chapters to be the weakest in the book.

Bitter Night has its bitter moments, but strong world building and a heroine who proves herself by bravery and resourcefulness, even willingness to suffer in the stead of others make it worth reading. There is no cliffhanger ending, but Diana is far from finished with her Horngate Witches...and neither am I.

Sexual Content: Kissing.

Reading the first chapter or two I had my doubts about this book but about 50 pages in and I was hooked. The cast of characters was wonderful and I can't think of a single one I did not like. Even the villains played their roles brilliantly so you can't help but appreciate the way they were developed. Max is a warrior with a chip on her shoulder that you sometimes wonder if she will cut off her nose to spite her face and yet you cannot help but feel sympathy for her role in life. Eventually though you also begin to see Giselle's point of view and why she did what she did. Does that make you like her more as a person? I don't know but at least you can understand her. Giselle and Max have a complex relationship that I can't wait to see how it develops in the next book. As for Alexander, he is your typical hot and sexy guy that Max feels instant chemistry with. He did not grab me as much as Max or some of the other characters in the book but he was still enjoyable.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book for being book 1 in a series. Usually I find the first book in series somewhat boring as there is a lot of set up and character building going on. So I was gladly surprised by this book. The only draw backs for me were a few times where things were just too unbelievable. For someone who was supposed to be a great warrior I was not impressed at some points with Alexander's warrior prowess, I also found it hard to believe at one point that they would linger and take a shower while in an enemy's stronghold, etc. Things like that bugged me but overall a wonderful book.

NO SPOILERS or plot summaries.

HIGH LEVEL: YES! Just that. YES! Yes, you should read this. Yes, you will like it. It was a seriously great read. Fast paced, high stakes, rich magical world with vivid, down to earth characters. I honestly wasn't sure after reading the first couple pages, but a few more pages in and I was HOOKED.

MYTHOS & STYLE: This is more of an Urban Fantasy than a romance, though there is a stronger element of romance than in many UFs. It was something of a blend of the two- a well-crafted blend. The magical world was cleverly written and diverse, ranging from witches to angels to hags. This could be considered a unique take on vampires- the Shadowblades and Sunspears. It was all very clever. Story is told from two perspectives- the female and male leads, which is interesting specifically because it isn't a true para-romance. It worked VERY well. The violence was fast and bloody and devastating. Not a faint hearted book.

CHARACTERS: Max, our heroine, is a strong lead. She makes a great central character- she has depth and flaws and enough anger to boil the words off the page. I felt her struggles from page one until the back cover. The supporting characters were all vibrant and full. Each of them sympathetic in their own way making up a great "band of brothers" type team. The "bad guys" were a little too stereotypical and lacked the same depth that the others had. Alexander, who was the male lead, was perhaps an even BETTER character than Max. He was something of a tragic hero- his 100+ year lifespan was very clear in how he was written. His loyalty, his strength, his struggles- wow. It was a real treat to watch Max & Alexander cautiously dance around each other.

BOTTOM LINE: I just loved this book and I could just go on and on about why. I couldn't put it down and I had no idea what to expect when I picked it up, so I'm sure I missed an appointment or two.

RECOMMENDATIONS:
1. Ilona Andrew's gritty, post-apocalyptic magic vs technology world: Magic Bites (Kate Daniels, Book 1)
2. Karen Chance's two highly energetic, very sexy vamp series Touch the Dark (Cassandra Palmer, Book 1) and the related series (start reading Cassandra's series first) Midnight's Daughter (Dorina Basarab, Dhampir, Book 1)
3. Jocelyn Drake's vampire/were/demon centric series full of grit: Nightwalker (Dark Days, Book 1)
4. Jennifer Estep's stone-magic wielding, hard, cold, vicious assassin Spider's Bite (Elemental Assassin, Book 1)
5. Jeaniene Frost's vamp mystery packed with action Halfway to the Grave (Night Huntress, Book 1)
6. Chloe Neill's spunky vampire themed Some Girls Bite (Chicagoland Vampires, Book 1)
7. Marjorie Liu's cold and murky, though somewhat abstract series of inherited heroism The Iron Hunt (Hunter Kiss, Book 1)
8. Lilith Saintcrow's two series, dark & gritty Night Shift (Jill Kismet, Hunter, Book 1) and Working for the Devil (Dante Valentine, Book 1)
9. Nalini Singh's creative use of angels and vampires in Angels' Blood (Guild Hunter)

Following Max's action adventure was like being on a roller coaster. Sometimes it was a lull and other times you were screaming. World building took up quite a bit of this book, and that is to be expected in a first in a series. I had problems with the amount of physical trauma Max endured and still kept going. She really is paranormal. Alexander needs to kick it up a notch if he wants us to regard him as a worthy love interest. I did love OZ (give us more OZ) and Magpie (any woman who can cook and see the future is okay by me). The head witches were for the most part annoying. The angels were really interesting but who the heck is Scooter and what was he doing there? In spite of all the negs I enjoyed this book. I had to keep reading to find out what happened. I will read the next when it is published.

I turned the last page of BITTER NIGHT impatient for the next book to come out...despite the fact that I had a number of issues with it. Topping the list would be the fact that the heroine, Max, actually dies three times in the book - her body is destroyed, her soul reduced to shreds - and yet she somehow keeps on ticking. I'm not even going to count the number of times she almost dies, from blood loss or grave wounds, but it's a lot. The woman is apparently indestructible.

Actually, Max would be a raging Mary Sue if it weren't for the fact that there are plenty of other, even more powerful characters peopling the novel. If Max's physical endurance is remarkable...well, she's just the #1 slave. The witches are much, much more powerful than she is. The angels are much, much more powerful than the witches. And the angels are just slaves to someone even higher up on the totem pole.

Max begins the book as a loner whose only purpose in life is revenge. She ends it as a woman who is dedicated to a cause, strongly connected to the people around her. In the early chapters of the book, Francis executes this transformation a little awkwardly. Max isn't that revenge-driven loner anymore...but she's not yet something else, either. It seemed like Max was having a hard time accepting that she'd changed. But sometimes, as a reader, I felt like Francis just wasn't certain enough about her characterization, and was trying to have it both ways. In any case, once Max accepts her new priorities, she continues to develop realistically and becomes a very interesting person.

In the first chapters of BITTER NIGHT, Max finds herself in possession of a hailstone - an item that will grant her a wish, any wish at all. Her first impulse is to wish for her own freedom - but as she realizes that there is some pretty major trouble on the horizon, Max begins to think about how she could use it to benefit all the people she cares about. I thought her final solution was brilliant. It was this twist at the end (no spoilers, don't worry) that convinced me that BITTER NIGHT is an excellent, solid series-starter despite my qualms.

There's much more to be said. I really enjoyed Max's conflicted relationship with the witch she's bonded to, Giselle, and I couldn't help but roll my eyes at the cliche-ridden relationship she has with the book's co-narrator, Alexander. He's 100 years old but looks 23, sophisticated, jaded, dangerous. You know the drill.

There was one particular exchange which, to me, summed up what is good about BITTER NIGHT. One of the characters says to Max, "You might do better luring me with honey rather than salt." Max replies, "Salt is the meal."

Plot Summary: 30-years-ago Max got drunk one night, and woke up months later no longer human. She was tricked by a witch into a lifetime of service as a Shadowblade - a supernatural fighting machine compelled to protect the witch by a web of compulsion spells. Despite the magic, Max remains defiant, stubborn, and a thorn in everyone's hide. While on reconnaissance in another witch's territory, Max meets another Shadowblade who may just be her equal, but their attraction takes a back seat when all hell breaks loose. The god-like Guardians who control magic are determined to wipe out humanity, and every creature of the Divine and Uncanny must choose sides.

It has been a long time since I gave an urban fantasy my top rating. In fact, it's been so long I'd be hard pressed to name the book. So good-bye to that hot, nasty, dry spell! I'm elated to find a new UF that fulfills everything on my wish-list, and my only regret is that Diana Pharaoh Francis is still writing book two, so I must curb my impatience. At the risk of sounding like Jim Cramer, urban fantasy fans should put "Bitter Night" on their Buy list.

Before I even got to the end of the second chapter I knew this was going to be excellent. Max is such an embittered heroine (I don't think the title is a coincidence), and yet she has a spunky attitude and a wicked mouth. She's been enslaved by a witch, but she's often the one in control because she doesn't care whether she lives or dies. Max will just shrug at the most desperate situations because it's always win-win to her. If she wins, all is good, but if she loses and dies, then she escapes her enslavement. This frustrates everyone else around her to no end, but she doesn't give a hoot. I love her character.

Max's attraction to her fellow Shadowblade, Alexander, added just the kind of unfulfilled romantic tension that makes a UF complete for me. I also found myself fascinated by Giselle, the witch who holds Max's leash. It was easy to hate her at the beginning, but by the end I wasn't so sure. Is she truly an evil woman, or does she serve an end that justifies her means? Only more books will tell.

According to Ms. Francis's website, she's currently working on the sequel, called "Crimson Wind", and she expects it will be released in October 2011. Why the long wait? Well, she also writes another fantasy series called the Crosspointe Chronicles, so I imagine that she's juggling projects.

In a way this book is similiar to _Dark Time_ by Dakota Banks. Both books feature supernatural enforcer types who are trying to get out bad bargains. The difference is that Bank's "Susannah" chose her life in a moment of transcendent misanthropy (being burned at the stake will do that to you), while Francis's "Max" mearly thought she was answering a bunch of hypothetical questions from her trusted room-mate.

*****SOME MINOR SPOILERS BELOW****

Anyway, answering those questions got Max transformed from a college student into an unaging, superstrong "Shadowblade", leader of the night-time protection team for the witch her room-mate turned out to be. Along with strength, immortality, enhanced senses and quick healing, Shadowblades have a vampire-like weakness in that they cannot bear sunlight. (A complementary group, "Sunspears", lead witchly daytime operations).

Events on an operation gone wrong lead Max and her witch to the conclusion that a long prophesied cataclysm is almost upon the world, and she must put her revenge against the witch as well as her growing attraction to a rival witch's chief Shadowblade on hold.

Anyway. I thought parts of this book were done well, and parts were not. I like Max's no-nonsense style, and some of the bits of her interacting with her witch are intriguing in that there is obviously more to their relationship than simple enslavement (though Max herself seems largely oblivious to this).

I did not feel the other characters were very compelling. In particular, the male lead who is obviously going to be hooking up with Max as the series progresses was written rather flatly. The book is written rather unusually for Urban Fantasy in the third person alternately from Max's and his points of view. Max sees him as super-hot and deadly, but when we are in his POV, he comes across as much more of a "beta" than an "alpha" and never seems to serve as much more than an alternate window on Max's actions and how special Max is. Secondary characters had even less character touches, except to play up again how special Mary--, um Max is, or advance plot points. Given that the series is called "Horngate Witches", I thought it was rather odd that the only time any other Horngate witches came onscreen, it was to kill the lot of them.

The world building seemed a bit arbitrary as well, with the Sunspears who can't stand the dark and the Shadowblades who can't stand the sun coming across as totally forced, and the idea that so much magic is so overt while still concealed from the public is strained here.

The plot does keep moving, and I like that Max never stops to whine like some UF heroines. There's enough potential here that I'll definitely buy the next book, but it does need a little work.

In _Bitter Night_, Diana Pharaoh Francis introduces an unusual urban-fantasy heroine. Max is a Shadowblade, a super-powered warrior bound to serve a witch and her coven. Enslaved against her will, Max has loathed Giselle, her witch, for decades. Yet she finds herself working alongside Giselle, and other unlikely allies, when the Guardians (gods) plan an attack on the human race and threaten to destroy any coven that won't help them.

What I liked about _Bitter Night_: First of all, the concept of Shadowblades (and their day-dwelling counterparts, the Sunspears) is unique. Second, I liked the themes of honor, debt, and freedom that Francis explores. Max's determination to help various characters escape their supernatural bindings reminds me a bit of the ending of Charles de Lint's _Jack the Giant-Killer_, which I loved.

Fans of action-packed, high-octane urban fantasy will find a lot to like here. I feel like I've just experienced the literary equivalent of a summer blockbuster! _Bitter Night_ features heaps of violence and gore. The gore was maybe a little too much for me. The Shadowblades' preternatural healing abilities enable Francis to dish out unbelievable injuries to her characters and still have them bounce back. Some of the injuries result from fighting, some from torture. Torture seems to be almost a sport to Francis' witches. They torture their own Shadowblades for fun and "practice," and when they want to challenge their rivals, they torture the other witches' Shadowblades as a form of competition. This is definitely not a book for the squeamish!

The real problem I ran into with _Bitter Night_, though, is that I felt a little distant from Max. This is in part due to Francis' unusual decisions regarding point of view. Most urban fantasies are written in the first person, and most of the rest are written in third person but still told exclusively from the heroine's perspective. Bitter Night is written in the third person, and roughly half of the story is written from the male lead's point of view.

But there's also the issue of Max's fellow Shadowblades. Her loyalty to them, and their devotion to her, is a big part of what makes Max tick. Yet I never felt like I knew these people very well. We learn a lot about Max's enslavement by Giselle, and a lot about her present-day situation, but not much about the intervening years, during which the bond between Max and her Blades developed. We don't get much personal backstory about these Blades, either. Since these characters are so important to Max, knowing them better would help the reader know Max better. Perhaps this will happen in the sequels.

The romance didn't really click with me, either. Don't get me wrong -- Max and Alexander make a great team. I can feel the respect and admiration between them, and it's clear that they work well as friends and colleagues. But their chemistry doesn't really come through the page. So whenever one of them had a thought about how attracted they were to the other, it would startle me for a moment, and then I'd think, "Oh, right, this is the romantic subplot."

However, I loved Francis' decision to have Max in a position of authority over Alexander for much of the novel. For a supposedly female-driven subgenre, there are a lot of urban fantasy worlds, and urban fantasy couples, that are male-dominated. This is not one of them!

_Bitter Night_ is an urban fantasy that takes a lot of risks. The results are mixed, but I can unequivocally say that it's not a carbon copy of anything else I've read.

You might like this book if you like:
1. Strong UF chicks that are uber alpha (oops - called a "Prime" in this book.)
2. Alternating POV of leading man 100+ year old "Alexander" and leading female "Max" as in "Mad Max".
3. Strong world building with Shadowblades (like vampires except they feed on copious amounts of greesy burgers vs. people) and Sunspears (who are the Shadowblades equivalent except they have a night allergy.) Both work together protecting their "b*tch witch" of Hornsgate (like a new age commune) Giselle (like a master vampire to the Shadowblades and Sunspears.)
4. Bad a** angels (work for Guardians - like ancient gods of old earth who are ready to take earth back from polluting humans.)
5. There was a clever non-violent way to save Hornsgate at the end. I do enjoy a clever ending that can be had from a hailstone (wish) from a Hag.
6. Between the witches, angels, hag and mysterious Native American spirit half god, there was plenty of supernatural powerplays.
7. Chemistry between the lead characters. I enjoyed being in his head as much as hers.

You might not like this book if you like:
1. Emotional, females who rely on their man to save them. (Although he does once - seemed out of character for her... maybe she was distracted???)
2. Lots of sex in your books. There was none in this one, but there is a slow boil romance sub-plot.
3. Lots of explanations of the magic. Max has no magic and appears to not have an understanding of how anything works, hence as the reader we don't know either. For example: At one point she is nearly burned alive, but as she was super healed her hair was back to normal- how does that work?
3. Strong leadership in their heroes: Everyone seems to rely on her, but I don't see yet the leadership qualities they appear to see. She is a bit reckless (the antithesis of Kate Daniels who seems to plan for everything). But it is still fun to shadow Max's story along with her.

Overall, this is a fine addition to the UF feminist book genre. I think it helps that the author has an established "fantasy" career already and is capable in creating a new world to explore in UF.

I REALLY enjoyed reading this book. It was jam-packed with harrowing fight and escape scenes, and it was impossible to put down. I liked the way she had just a touch of romance. It is so rare to read an urban fantasy that has a romantic angle but doesn't overwhelm you with sex scenes. What was most compelling about this book though was the main character. Max is tough, smart, and willing to do whatever she has to do to protect her friends. She is also a conflicted character, whose internal struggles make the book that much more interesting. Mostly, I just want to know when the sequel is coming out!!!